Jeremy Feliz Delgado
Prof. Kayle Nochomovitz
FIQWS: 10115 U.S. Experience
February 10, 2020
Cultural Identity Narrative
I was born in a small town in the province of La Vega, Dominican Republic, in a family that was mostly Christian and very unified, at least on my mother’s side. My entire life I and my parents were much more involved with my mother’s side of the family than with my father’s side. I was raised in a town where everyone looked the same, spoke the same language, and had very similar beliefs. Both of my parents were fairly known since they both taught in many places including universities, so most of the time people would recognize me because of my parents.
Not only did I attend church with my family every Sunday, but I also went to a private Christian school. This wasn’t a school with many students although it had pre-k to 12th grade, and again basically everybody knew each other. All teachers and staff at the school claimed to be Christian and this influenced their way of teaching. Even though in every aspect of my life I was exposed to religion I didn’t have a real connection to it. I didn’t really enjoy going to church, I just went because I believed I had to, and I would take any excuse to not go or to leave early, for example, I used to say I was hungry in the middle of the service just to leave earlier even if I wasn’t. I also knew most of the Bible stories, but I didn’t really believe them or identify with them. But I was used to this, it was normal, so I was fine with it.
When I was 14 years old things changed drastically, my parents got divorced and my mother moved with me and my brother to New York City, after this for about three years I lost all contact with my father. So, he had no influence on what I believe are the most important years of my life. I entered a public high school, with people from so many different backgrounds, cultures, beliefs and people that looked different than me and what I was used to. In this city and school, I was influenced by the way of life of other Dominican immigrants that had been here for longer, since this was the group that I felt I had more things in common with me. I didn’t go to church, didn’t read the Bible and basically had disconnected from Christianity. I started caring less about school and my grades and tried to act like everyone else in order to fit in. I did things that before I wouldn’t even think of just because my new “friends” asked me to, and I wanted to impress them, for example, I started cutting classes, going to parties where I drank things that I wasn’t supposed to and many other things that I am not proud of. But no matter what I did it or how I acted it was never enough.
After two years of trying to change who I was in order to fit in, I gave up as no matter what I did, I didn’t feel part of this new group of friends. But I had changed enough to not feel like I belonged to the friends or community that I left back in my hometown. For some time, I felt lonelier since I felt like I wasn’t a part of anything, I had no friends I just knew a lot of people, so I looked for a refuge back in Christianity. This time I did it willingly, nobody pushed me into it. I realized that even though I knew most of the Bible I didn’t understand it. But after I read the Bible on my own and made it more personal, I found meaning to these stories in the Bible and finally was able to identify with them. I could finally call myself a Christian and believe it. I no longer felt the need of belonging to a certain group of people, and simply became comfortable with who I was. Although for a long time I blamed the fact of having to move to this new city for all of this trouble I went to, now I am actually thankful for this as I learned a lot of things that make me who I am today. If I had stayed in my hometown, I think that I would still be in the same weird place with Christianity and with the need of belonging to a group of people.
